What does theology have to say about ontology? What does literature have to say about ontology? Can they be mutually informative regarding this issue?
Over the course of a few years, I asked, “what is the essential ontological difference between the Hindu and the Methodist pastor?” (this inquiry could be ventured in a variety of ways, and there are many answers in theology, though I felt generally dissatisfied). They are after all right across the street from each other, not even two hundred feet. I erroneously began this inquiry with belief asking, “what is the ontological significance of belief?” I was gravely disappointed (belief has epistemological implications though not direct ontological implications).
Since then I have directed my inquiry in a different direction, and I have concluded that, though epistemology is a grammar for ontological nexuses, relationship not belief has (direct) ontological significance.
The importance of community for the sake of identity among other things is currently emphasized by many. (This correlates to the much discussed apparent contradiction that though we seem to be “knowers” we do not know ourselves but must rely on others knowing us to know ourselves - we see ourselves and have certain notions of ourselves, but are these notions accurate or fabricated or at least partial truths? We need other people to identify us, and we need other people inform who we are.) However, I think more often than not this hackneyed emphasis lacks clarity in so far as it inadequately shows the concrete reality of identity (it is limited by its expressiveness and lack of referent).
Often community is offered as a way of ratifying identity but these attempts seem to fall short in showing concretely what this means or what this terminology (“community”) is doing to indicate resolution regarding the issue of ontology. I suggest that, with the imaginative powers of literary theory and narrative, we may begin to grasp the concrete reality of what it is to identify and thereby validate ontology within the context of community (to validate ontology, a person must be capable of identifying what it is one is validating; thus, identity is crucial for ontology).
Do modern novels have the potential to help us begin grasping the concrete reality of what it is to identify and thereby validate ontology within the context of community? Maybe. Some can answer this only in the negative, for their writers had a much different agenda - showing the protagonists in isolation to reveal the true “nature” of the person (but in seeking to truly reveal the identity of the person the person was lost in phenomenological wallowings (isolation is an ontological vacuum-like relational inversion; the ontology is evanescent in this circumstance)). However, novels such as The Brothers Karamazov, a novel way ahead of its time, may be helpful in this area, for much of the identity and thus the ontology of the brothers (as even the title suggests) relies heavily on relationships. The immediate and also the extended communities of the brothers give tacit remarks and validations regarding identity and thereby ontology. We “know” Dmitri, Ivan, Alyosha, and Smerdyakov, according to their mutually informative communities. I began to realize the potential of The Brothers Karamazov regarding ontology, when Esther exclaimed after reading a disturbing passage seemingly focused on Dmitri, “where is Alyosha in all of this!” Then I realized, “yes, Alyosha is there! Dmitri is the brother Alyosha wishes with all his heart to save!” It in this unsettling passage that we see a snippet of Alyosha’s enduring mercy. He would wish to save even this mongrel (this could and should be explained further, but this is at least a start).
Should theology and literature be divided? With the example of the bible, we see that it is best not. In terms of identity and consequently ontology, the bible is easily (apart from its canonization) the highest quality theological treatise, if for no other reason than it captures the imaginative powers of literature and thereby shows concretely the reality of what it is to identify and thereby validate ontology within the context of community (think of Genesis and 2 Samuel as examples). To this end, theology should rightly appropriate the powers of good literature and find its home in narrative.
Literary theory, on the other hand, may do well to learn from theology in learning how identity and consequently ontology is validated (in community) and thus develop new means of crafting the identity and ontology of a given protagonist(s).
Friday, February 25, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Narrative Voice
It’s a curious thing that often when we begin to describe or retell a story we begin describing not the story but our own creation that may or may not have analogs to the story that we are intending to retell. This is an issue for students, novelists, pastors, historians, and anyone holding a casual conversation on the street corner. It’s likely a helpful practice then to be aware of what we are doing when we retell a story.
There are some stories reported by a named or anonymous persona. This persona may be loquacious or laconic. The common denominator is the persona’s conspicuous presence in the telling of the story. Though the persona may not be directly involved in the story, the persona is involved in so far as the persona engages on occasion with the reader and the characters’ thoughts and actions. The persona in a sense commentates on the story while telling the story. Perhaps, at times, the persona budges into the front and center of the stage so that the people, places, and events of the story are a backdrop to the persona’s commentating. The story may then be pages and pages of commentary and less actual action by the given people in the story. This sort of narrative voice is often simplistically referred to as telling.
In contrast, there may not be a persona telling the story. You may begin reading or for that matter listening without any inclination that there is someone telling the story other than the fact that portions of narrative are included and excluded in the telling of the story. The people, places, and events are front and center throughout the entirety of the story. There is not a persona commentating on the story’s happenings. There are merely people doing and saying things. This sort of narrative voice may be referred to as showing (similar to telling, this form of narrative may take on numerous forms such as implied third person, first person reflective, first person stream of consciousness, etc, so there is not one single form of showing).
However, the distinction between telling and showing is naïve, for never is one form present and the other form absent. The difference then is that one form may be more present than the other. There are innumerable combinations. Gogol and Dickens come to mind as two novelists who do commentate but restrainedly, while there are some earlier novelists who find themselves most interesting and thus chat more than their characters. This lies in stark contrast with Sartre’s protagonist in Nausea. Antoine Roquentin journals about the world around him and within him. Sartre or Sartre’s possible persona is not commentating on Antoine. The reader encounters Antoine filtered only by the implied narration of the narrator, implied because some happenings are included while others are excluded, and even then it would seem that Antoine is his own narrator. Other examples of this sort of extreme showing are As I Lay Dying and The Sound and The Fury. However, showing may also be merely people doing and saying things without a chatty persona. An example of this sort of middle of the road type showing is seen in O’Connor’s The Violent Bear It Away or McCarthy’s Sutree. Telling and showing a story are both intermingled processes of telling a story and thereby including and excluding many people, places, and events. Though some stories may exclude a lot of events, no story is exhaustive, even for that matter War and Peace.
It seems nearly impossible then to retell a story that already formally tells (thus furthering the filtration of the events in the story) or to retell a story that accentuates the form of showing events as they happen. In either case retelling a story seems to subtract and add to the original story thereby creating something different (there are a few cases when a story can be precisely reduplicated but even those cases seem suspect). This seems to be the case even with stories told the first time around; the people, places, and events are filtered through a narrator. No matter which form of narration is employed, the narrator is a present filtration at least by implication. Thus, awareness of the form and limitation of narrative is indispensable no matter what telling or writing is at hand.
The student may find that self-awareness in the writing process heightens the accuracy and efficiency of his essays, for he may then begin to locate which narrative voice he naturally uses (fortunately or unfortunately), which he may then alter accordingly. The novelist may appropriate certain methods in writing that may enhance the fabric of the narrative and thereby avoid certain clunky foibles. The pastor may employ certain restraints while sharing a story thereby revealing a story that is vital in and of itself without distracting impositions. The historian may find that thinning the filter (fewer fabricated inferences) may prove to be much more exciting and informative for readers. And the person on the street corner retelling the comical happenings at work may find himself giving a much more lively account with more or less commentary. Thus, a crucial element in narrative voice is the awareness of the narrator, that he or she realize what he or she is and is not doing.
There are some stories reported by a named or anonymous persona. This persona may be loquacious or laconic. The common denominator is the persona’s conspicuous presence in the telling of the story. Though the persona may not be directly involved in the story, the persona is involved in so far as the persona engages on occasion with the reader and the characters’ thoughts and actions. The persona in a sense commentates on the story while telling the story. Perhaps, at times, the persona budges into the front and center of the stage so that the people, places, and events of the story are a backdrop to the persona’s commentating. The story may then be pages and pages of commentary and less actual action by the given people in the story. This sort of narrative voice is often simplistically referred to as telling.
In contrast, there may not be a persona telling the story. You may begin reading or for that matter listening without any inclination that there is someone telling the story other than the fact that portions of narrative are included and excluded in the telling of the story. The people, places, and events are front and center throughout the entirety of the story. There is not a persona commentating on the story’s happenings. There are merely people doing and saying things. This sort of narrative voice may be referred to as showing (similar to telling, this form of narrative may take on numerous forms such as implied third person, first person reflective, first person stream of consciousness, etc, so there is not one single form of showing).
However, the distinction between telling and showing is naïve, for never is one form present and the other form absent. The difference then is that one form may be more present than the other. There are innumerable combinations. Gogol and Dickens come to mind as two novelists who do commentate but restrainedly, while there are some earlier novelists who find themselves most interesting and thus chat more than their characters. This lies in stark contrast with Sartre’s protagonist in Nausea. Antoine Roquentin journals about the world around him and within him. Sartre or Sartre’s possible persona is not commentating on Antoine. The reader encounters Antoine filtered only by the implied narration of the narrator, implied because some happenings are included while others are excluded, and even then it would seem that Antoine is his own narrator. Other examples of this sort of extreme showing are As I Lay Dying and The Sound and The Fury. However, showing may also be merely people doing and saying things without a chatty persona. An example of this sort of middle of the road type showing is seen in O’Connor’s The Violent Bear It Away or McCarthy’s Sutree. Telling and showing a story are both intermingled processes of telling a story and thereby including and excluding many people, places, and events. Though some stories may exclude a lot of events, no story is exhaustive, even for that matter War and Peace.
It seems nearly impossible then to retell a story that already formally tells (thus furthering the filtration of the events in the story) or to retell a story that accentuates the form of showing events as they happen. In either case retelling a story seems to subtract and add to the original story thereby creating something different (there are a few cases when a story can be precisely reduplicated but even those cases seem suspect). This seems to be the case even with stories told the first time around; the people, places, and events are filtered through a narrator. No matter which form of narration is employed, the narrator is a present filtration at least by implication. Thus, awareness of the form and limitation of narrative is indispensable no matter what telling or writing is at hand.
The student may find that self-awareness in the writing process heightens the accuracy and efficiency of his essays, for he may then begin to locate which narrative voice he naturally uses (fortunately or unfortunately), which he may then alter accordingly. The novelist may appropriate certain methods in writing that may enhance the fabric of the narrative and thereby avoid certain clunky foibles. The pastor may employ certain restraints while sharing a story thereby revealing a story that is vital in and of itself without distracting impositions. The historian may find that thinning the filter (fewer fabricated inferences) may prove to be much more exciting and informative for readers. And the person on the street corner retelling the comical happenings at work may find himself giving a much more lively account with more or less commentary. Thus, a crucial element in narrative voice is the awareness of the narrator, that he or she realize what he or she is and is not doing.
Monday, February 21, 2011
synthetic philosophy
My earliest childhood memories are of my parents reading me fiction. Since then I have explored fiction relentlessly, only to find that yes indeed, “the reading of books is endless.” What began with The Hobbit continues with Dickens and Dostoevsky and Percy. Somewhere along the way self-awareness struck, and I had to ask myself the questions, “what is this I am reading and why do I like it so much?” These are two questions with which I continue to wrestle.
For the first question, I haven’t the knowledge to give an accurate history of the novel, but I am willing to wager a guess that many modern novelists seem to have a desire, an urge, to capture that which C.S. Lewis indicates cannot be captured, the enjoyed, life as life is actually lived. What else is raw realism of subjectivity but an endeavor to do just this, capture life as it is? Portions of The Sound and the Fury show what I mean. Perhaps, Faulkner pined to capture it, life, but alas he captured what C.S. Lewis called not the enjoyed but the contemplated. Faulkner strove, perhaps subconsciously, in vain to display the enjoyed, but as soon as he began to write the enjoyed was but an imprint, the contemplated version of the enjoyed. But this does not reduce the novel to triviality.
The novel’s capacity to literally multitask astounds me (naturally, for this discussion I will assume the novel to be written by a good novelist opposed to a poor one. Other more derogatory discussions may be saved for the cheap novelists and their fast-food-fiction). An anthropology, theology, psychology, etc., may be discoursed with no more than a wink, nod, and a scream. For this reason, the novel is synthetic philosophy, capturing in a single dialogue or description or gesture a treatise of life. But a novel is more than a single dialogue or gesture; it is an ocean of dialogues and gestures. Thus, the novel, in a mere hundred well used pages, is ten volumes of anthropology, theology, and psychology. A novel may be a contemplated version of the enjoyed, but with a mere sentence a mirror is set in front of nature to divulge her virtue. A page-long dialogue in a novel has the capacity to possess more meaning than a classroom full of textbooks.
The second question (“why do I like it so much?” ) baffles me because in part it is a complex question, a question involving more than one question. The “I” must be considered, and the “it” must be considered. What is it about me that draws me toward the novel? How does “it” relate to that aspect of me that so desires it?
With the aforementioned considerations regarding novels, it comes as little surprise that throughout history traditions have been preserved with stories. Furthermore, it seems to make rather good sense that the Scriptures involve myriads of stories. It must be true then that I am drawn to stories and more particularly to novels for a multiplicity of reasons. For one, stories are integral to my faith, and second I have a certain fondness for stories due to a host of childhood memories. Furthermore, stories do what nothing else can do, recount life. And life is something worth recounting; we humans live and die for our memories.
Stories aim at uncategorized life, nearly the enjoyed; if nothing more, stories are a way of preserving a version of especially important enjoyed moments. It’s the critics who vivisect stories and make them what they’re not, themes and caricatures. If my parents had read only critics’ reviews of stories to me when I was I child, I suspect I would never have mustered the motivation to read a story. Fortunately, they introduced me to sprawling adventures wrapped in paper and ink. I am in their debt.
For the first question, I haven’t the knowledge to give an accurate history of the novel, but I am willing to wager a guess that many modern novelists seem to have a desire, an urge, to capture that which C.S. Lewis indicates cannot be captured, the enjoyed, life as life is actually lived. What else is raw realism of subjectivity but an endeavor to do just this, capture life as it is? Portions of The Sound and the Fury show what I mean. Perhaps, Faulkner pined to capture it, life, but alas he captured what C.S. Lewis called not the enjoyed but the contemplated. Faulkner strove, perhaps subconsciously, in vain to display the enjoyed, but as soon as he began to write the enjoyed was but an imprint, the contemplated version of the enjoyed. But this does not reduce the novel to triviality.
The novel’s capacity to literally multitask astounds me (naturally, for this discussion I will assume the novel to be written by a good novelist opposed to a poor one. Other more derogatory discussions may be saved for the cheap novelists and their fast-food-fiction). An anthropology, theology, psychology, etc., may be discoursed with no more than a wink, nod, and a scream. For this reason, the novel is synthetic philosophy, capturing in a single dialogue or description or gesture a treatise of life. But a novel is more than a single dialogue or gesture; it is an ocean of dialogues and gestures. Thus, the novel, in a mere hundred well used pages, is ten volumes of anthropology, theology, and psychology. A novel may be a contemplated version of the enjoyed, but with a mere sentence a mirror is set in front of nature to divulge her virtue. A page-long dialogue in a novel has the capacity to possess more meaning than a classroom full of textbooks.
The second question (“why do I like it so much?” ) baffles me because in part it is a complex question, a question involving more than one question. The “I” must be considered, and the “it” must be considered. What is it about me that draws me toward the novel? How does “it” relate to that aspect of me that so desires it?
With the aforementioned considerations regarding novels, it comes as little surprise that throughout history traditions have been preserved with stories. Furthermore, it seems to make rather good sense that the Scriptures involve myriads of stories. It must be true then that I am drawn to stories and more particularly to novels for a multiplicity of reasons. For one, stories are integral to my faith, and second I have a certain fondness for stories due to a host of childhood memories. Furthermore, stories do what nothing else can do, recount life. And life is something worth recounting; we humans live and die for our memories.
Stories aim at uncategorized life, nearly the enjoyed; if nothing more, stories are a way of preserving a version of especially important enjoyed moments. It’s the critics who vivisect stories and make them what they’re not, themes and caricatures. If my parents had read only critics’ reviews of stories to me when I was I child, I suspect I would never have mustered the motivation to read a story. Fortunately, they introduced me to sprawling adventures wrapped in paper and ink. I am in their debt.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Who Am I?
Identity is curious and elusive. I do not claim to have a handle on it. We all want to say we have identity and know who we ourselves are, but how many of us can indicate our own identity and how might we go about doing so? Last night I went to a lecture by Stanley Hauerwas. He explained more eloquently than I shall attempt here: we get to know him through other people’s narratives about him; we learn who he is by discovering other people’s relationships with him. Conversely, we likely learn less about who he really is by hearing himself talk about himself. This may be an analog to the issue of identity. A person’s identity may be located by discovering a person’s relationships. Nietzsche furthers this point: “we are unknown, we knowers, to ourselves…of necessity we remain strangers to ourselves, we understand ourselves not, in ourselves we are bound to be mistaken, for each of us holds good to all eternity the motto ‘each is the farthest away from himself,’ as far as ourselves are concerned we are not knowers.”
This may become clearer (or muddled further) with an example. Who is Raskolnikov? This question may be answered by saying, “he’s a muderer in one of Dostoevsky’s novels.” But who is it who is the muderer? And who was he before he murdered? And was he who was previous to murdering altered by murdering? (These questions may be answered in part by his dream in the first tenth of the story) Setting aside these such questions, we may then ask, as many people have done, “why did he murder?” This question strikes me as hilarious because so much ink has been spilled on that question, when actually it cannot be answered even by Dostoevsky. He explained definitively in a letter to his publisher why the student killed the old lady, and in a letter to a friend he said he is not sure why Raskolnikov killed the old “louse.” I assume Dostoevsky’s letter to his friend was a bit more honest. What does this have to do with identity? In relation to the aforementioned process of discerning identity in Hauerwas’ lecture, it has quite a lot to do with identity. Perhaps, one reason even Dostoevsky did not know why precisely Raskolnikov killed the old lady is because we meet Raskolnikov not long before he commits the crime and thereby have little resources for discerning who Raskolnikov is via relationships with other people. All we have is a rather isolated person who mumbles to himself and remains distant from other people even in conversations. This of course is indicative, but it is not what we need to acquire who he is exactly other than an isolated maunderer who is tortured by his economic situation among other things - Raskolnikov’s solitary entry may be modernity’s influence on Dostoevsky.
We have the Narrator’s narrative in relationship to Raskolnikov, which I originally thought might be needed in this conversation due to Raskolnikov’s origin being in the Narrator, which I thought might be analogous to God’s relationship to Augustine as indicated in Augustine’s Confessions. However, the Narrator does not posses an ultimate perspective on Raskolnikov as does God in relation to Augustine, for the Narrator (or creator of the Narrator, Dostoevsky) confesses ignorance as indicated in his letter to a friend. So as Hauerwas indicated last night, we are ultimately understood according to and within God’s narrative about us, but this is not analogous to the Narrator in relationship to Raskolnikov. Therefore, though the Narrator may be included in the many relationships with Raskolnikov, it is not required, so the Narrator need not be included in this discussion.
Ironically, there are many relationships throughout the story, though Raskolnikov is radically isolated. Two crucial relationships in the story, which may give insight into the identity of Raskolnikov, are Raskolnikov’s relationships with Razumikhin and Sonya. Razumikhin’s relationship with Raskolnikov is primary in the first portion of the story. Razumikhin is a voice of reason and mostly a good influence on Raskolnikov. Razumikhin is a faithful friend but to a narcissistic axe murderer. Did Razumikhin go wrong? Probably not because Razumikhin does not come into relationship with Raskolnikov in any prominent way until after the murder, and even when Razumikhin is prominent Raskolnikov remains rather distant from Razumikhin, especially considering Razumikhin is one of Raskolnikov’s only real friends at the time. This relationship may not be as helpful in identifying Raskolnikov, for Raskolnikov insulates himself in this relationship - though that’s a start.
It’s difficult to determine when precisely (good job Dostoevsky) Razumikhin drifts from primary to secondary friend, and somewhere along the way Sonya drifts into being a primary friend to Raskolnikov. This is crucial, for though Razumikhin is a portrayed as a mostly good person Sonya does something more. She is a prostitute that her family might not starve to death after her father died and left her mother with several children to feed. Thus, Sonya is at the bottom of the social latter, but she is somehow simultaneously a selfless saint who serves her family relentlessly. When she drifts into becoming a primary friend and confidant to Raskolnikov, we find her to be a penetrating voice of mercy and truth. She immediately empathizes with Raskolnikov’s burden when he confesses his crime to her, but she requires that he confess to the publicly. He refuses at first. Thus, we see need for confession, and his denial of that fact. Raskolnikov is thoroughly insulated, but then he melts and falls to Sonya’s feet. A murderer forgiven by a prostitute. A prostitute who urges confession and repentance. A dead man resurrected through confession and repentance. These snippets are merely snippets, but they may at least suggest the potential for discovering the identity of Raskolnikov by way of relationships with other people.
Unfortunately for us, we may never really see a clear picture of Raskolnikov because the narrator of Raskolnikov focused so exclusively on Raskolnikov - a rather individualistic, modern, way of seeking to thoroughly show who he is, which ironically does the opposite. But the isolation seems to be a correct diagnostic; the isolation should be expected to intensify after Raskolnikov murders. We know lots of what Raskolnikov thinks and does, but we know little of who is the one who is thinking and doing. When he confesses at the end, we get a glimmer of hope that maybe he will one day enter into vital relationships, vital relationships which may then reveal who this Raskolnikov fellow is. But the epilogue only suggests such a thing.
It seems then that, when we social creatures drift away from relationships, we may in fact lose ourselves. We may drift into evanescence, practically invisible to others and thereby to ourselves. “Who is Raskolnikov?” may be answered in the negative. We do not precisely know who he is. He thinks and does things, but we do not know who is doing the thinking and the doing. But this negative answer may provide at least some indication in favor of the converse. Relationships, other people’s narratives about “me,” may in fact provide a glimpse of “who” I am.
This may become clearer (or muddled further) with an example. Who is Raskolnikov? This question may be answered by saying, “he’s a muderer in one of Dostoevsky’s novels.” But who is it who is the muderer? And who was he before he murdered? And was he who was previous to murdering altered by murdering? (These questions may be answered in part by his dream in the first tenth of the story) Setting aside these such questions, we may then ask, as many people have done, “why did he murder?” This question strikes me as hilarious because so much ink has been spilled on that question, when actually it cannot be answered even by Dostoevsky. He explained definitively in a letter to his publisher why the student killed the old lady, and in a letter to a friend he said he is not sure why Raskolnikov killed the old “louse.” I assume Dostoevsky’s letter to his friend was a bit more honest. What does this have to do with identity? In relation to the aforementioned process of discerning identity in Hauerwas’ lecture, it has quite a lot to do with identity. Perhaps, one reason even Dostoevsky did not know why precisely Raskolnikov killed the old lady is because we meet Raskolnikov not long before he commits the crime and thereby have little resources for discerning who Raskolnikov is via relationships with other people. All we have is a rather isolated person who mumbles to himself and remains distant from other people even in conversations. This of course is indicative, but it is not what we need to acquire who he is exactly other than an isolated maunderer who is tortured by his economic situation among other things - Raskolnikov’s solitary entry may be modernity’s influence on Dostoevsky.
We have the Narrator’s narrative in relationship to Raskolnikov, which I originally thought might be needed in this conversation due to Raskolnikov’s origin being in the Narrator, which I thought might be analogous to God’s relationship to Augustine as indicated in Augustine’s Confessions. However, the Narrator does not posses an ultimate perspective on Raskolnikov as does God in relation to Augustine, for the Narrator (or creator of the Narrator, Dostoevsky) confesses ignorance as indicated in his letter to a friend. So as Hauerwas indicated last night, we are ultimately understood according to and within God’s narrative about us, but this is not analogous to the Narrator in relationship to Raskolnikov. Therefore, though the Narrator may be included in the many relationships with Raskolnikov, it is not required, so the Narrator need not be included in this discussion.
Ironically, there are many relationships throughout the story, though Raskolnikov is radically isolated. Two crucial relationships in the story, which may give insight into the identity of Raskolnikov, are Raskolnikov’s relationships with Razumikhin and Sonya. Razumikhin’s relationship with Raskolnikov is primary in the first portion of the story. Razumikhin is a voice of reason and mostly a good influence on Raskolnikov. Razumikhin is a faithful friend but to a narcissistic axe murderer. Did Razumikhin go wrong? Probably not because Razumikhin does not come into relationship with Raskolnikov in any prominent way until after the murder, and even when Razumikhin is prominent Raskolnikov remains rather distant from Razumikhin, especially considering Razumikhin is one of Raskolnikov’s only real friends at the time. This relationship may not be as helpful in identifying Raskolnikov, for Raskolnikov insulates himself in this relationship - though that’s a start.
It’s difficult to determine when precisely (good job Dostoevsky) Razumikhin drifts from primary to secondary friend, and somewhere along the way Sonya drifts into being a primary friend to Raskolnikov. This is crucial, for though Razumikhin is a portrayed as a mostly good person Sonya does something more. She is a prostitute that her family might not starve to death after her father died and left her mother with several children to feed. Thus, Sonya is at the bottom of the social latter, but she is somehow simultaneously a selfless saint who serves her family relentlessly. When she drifts into becoming a primary friend and confidant to Raskolnikov, we find her to be a penetrating voice of mercy and truth. She immediately empathizes with Raskolnikov’s burden when he confesses his crime to her, but she requires that he confess to the publicly. He refuses at first. Thus, we see need for confession, and his denial of that fact. Raskolnikov is thoroughly insulated, but then he melts and falls to Sonya’s feet. A murderer forgiven by a prostitute. A prostitute who urges confession and repentance. A dead man resurrected through confession and repentance. These snippets are merely snippets, but they may at least suggest the potential for discovering the identity of Raskolnikov by way of relationships with other people.
Unfortunately for us, we may never really see a clear picture of Raskolnikov because the narrator of Raskolnikov focused so exclusively on Raskolnikov - a rather individualistic, modern, way of seeking to thoroughly show who he is, which ironically does the opposite. But the isolation seems to be a correct diagnostic; the isolation should be expected to intensify after Raskolnikov murders. We know lots of what Raskolnikov thinks and does, but we know little of who is the one who is thinking and doing. When he confesses at the end, we get a glimmer of hope that maybe he will one day enter into vital relationships, vital relationships which may then reveal who this Raskolnikov fellow is. But the epilogue only suggests such a thing.
It seems then that, when we social creatures drift away from relationships, we may in fact lose ourselves. We may drift into evanescence, practically invisible to others and thereby to ourselves. “Who is Raskolnikov?” may be answered in the negative. We do not precisely know who he is. He thinks and does things, but we do not know who is doing the thinking and the doing. But this negative answer may provide at least some indication in favor of the converse. Relationships, other people’s narratives about “me,” may in fact provide a glimpse of “who” I am.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
From Death to Life
If I were a cat and had nine lives, I would spend one of those lives studying Dostoevsky’s corpus. In the past few years I have merely begun reading his monstrous corpus. The more I read the more I realize just how much there is to read - though I must confess in advance that I have never read his first novel, Poor Folk (I’ve tried three times but alas the few pages I’ve read were ghastly). And then at the end of the day when the reading is done, I realize my understanding has barely touched the surface. Touché, Dostoevsky. From House of the Dead and Notes From Underground to Demons and The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky touches on some of the most vital and sensitive areas of life. In fact, I actually know Raskolnikov, though mostly as just an acquaintance. What makes all these novels so good? To answer in Flannery O’Connor’s manner, I might say that Dostoevsky introduces us to people, and it’s a mystery what will happen next. Before we know it we’ve been swept away into disaster, comedy, and pining. From what I can tell, it’s rather impossible to indicate by bullet points or litany reasons why Dostoevsky is so good - in fact Kierkegaard asserted that if “you can list reasons why you love her, you do not love her; you only love those aspects about her.” So maybe it’s better not to list reasons why Dostoevsky is worth reading and perhaps studying extensively.
I wish I could say that my first encounter with Dostoevsky was sublime, but alas it’s not. On one of the many book shelves in my parents’ house sat a row of comic books. I was young then, perhaps six or seven years old. I liked pictures as much as stories, so naturally I frequented this shelf stocked with comic books. The comic books had neat pictures, but they were black and white - now those books are antiques, and my brother Philip would very much like to pinch them from me (I snuck them out of my parents’ house when I moved to California). I scanned the pictures not certain about the details of the stories but at least learning the generalities of the stories beginnings, middles, and endings. There was one particular book; it had a whale on the front, so I knew it was Moby Dick, a rather boring story about a guy who gets on a boat to stab whales with spears. I returned to this book often mostly because I thought the funny looking Indian, Queequeg, who smoked a funny looking pipe was interesting. There was also another book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I really liked this one, and in fact I read the actual full length story not long after because I like the pictures so much. Roving in caves and digging for buried treasure sounded like a lot of fun. There were numerous other such black and white comic books, too many to count at the time. It seemed like hundreds. Now I know it was more like twenty. The Invisible Man was another one of my favorites; I’m not certain why. And then there was another
book I remember vividly, though I didn’t like it much. But it was so boring and irksome that I returned to it more than twice. It started with a guy walking and talking to himself. Then all of a sudden he pulled out an axe and killed an old lady for no apparent reason! Why would he do something like that? And then all he did was walk around and talk to people. For a six or seven year old boy, Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, even as a comic book, was rather boring, but I remember it; something about it struck me even as a young boy who thought it was boring.
In college I rediscovered Dostoevsky. I heard someone mention “The Brothers Karamazov written by Dostoevsky,” and then in an instant childhood memories of that really boring comic book, Crime and Punishment, flooded my mind. Almost simultaneously I had the insatiable desire to read the Brothers Karamazov, and I did. Much to my surprise, it was not as boring as I remembered Crime and Punishment to be. The Karamazov brothers are a lot of things, but they are certainly not boring. The oldest brother Dmitri is in love with the same woman as his father. Ivan writes theological treatises to be ironic, for he is an atheist. And poor Alyosha, the youngest brother, is a monk in training; he is a beacon of purity. In the shadowy corners and cobwebs lurks Smerdyakov, the schemer, the illegitimate son. While reflecting on the Brothers Karamazov, it is sometimes difficult to think of these brothers, their relationships with each other and with others as something fictional. It’s all so vivid and vital.
Dostoevsky’s other novels, though not quite as masterful as The Brothers Karamazov, are nonetheless memorable. The twenty-six year old Prince Myshkin’s, Dostoevsky’s Christ figure (the idiot), relationship with the debauched world is startling and tragic. I am absent minded, and I forget a lot of things. But I will never forget Kirillov’s final scene with Stepanovich in Demons - I am reminded of O’Connor’s wisdom for fiction, “violence is not an end in itself but is an extreme situation that reveals what we are essentially.” There are many memorable people and events in Dostoevsky’s novels. Things happen that won’t soon be forgotten.
My junior year in college I hadn’t a clue what lay on a book shelf somewhere waiting to ambush me. Rediscovering Crime and Punishment in college was something analogous to meeting an old disliked acquaintance who turns out to be a rather formidable foe and indispensable friend. It didn’t take long for me to learn that the first page in the comic book and the first page in Volokhonsky’s translation are two different things. There is discontinuity between the pictures and the words. Perhaps, the pictures weren’t very good, but I think it’s because the world of the words can’t be copied with something other than words without adding and subtracting and thereby creating something different. Raskolnikov, Sonya, Svidrigailov, Porfiry, Razumikhin, and Marmeladov’s story can be told only, it seems, with words.
Unfortunately, I have never read any of Dostoevsky’s novels in Russian, perhaps one day. But even through translations, I think I know Dostoevsky had a way with words, introducing people, recounting tragedies as if they had happened, and drawing truth in crayon for anyone to see, even a young boy who only had the pictures.
Thus far, Dostoevsky has given me much. These are a few such reflections: a person strives to live in a coffin, in the chambers of death, in a prison, in addiction, underground, in rebellion. Trapped by self-imposed death the man underground can’t do anything; addicted to the “next time,” the gambler can’t let go and live; the rebel deceives himself into thinking death is better than life. And yet a person can truly live, only if he dies to death and rebellion. The murderer makes for himself a coffin and convinces himself that it's better to be in the coffin than outside of it. But a person must die to living in death. A person must relinquish death through confession in order to live, to resurrect into new life. The life after death to death is fraught with struggle, but it is truly life. Here is an ironic truth. We feeble humans strive to live according to our own deathly wishes, and yet life awaits to vitalize us if only we would die to death first.
I wish I could say that my first encounter with Dostoevsky was sublime, but alas it’s not. On one of the many book shelves in my parents’ house sat a row of comic books. I was young then, perhaps six or seven years old. I liked pictures as much as stories, so naturally I frequented this shelf stocked with comic books. The comic books had neat pictures, but they were black and white - now those books are antiques, and my brother Philip would very much like to pinch them from me (I snuck them out of my parents’ house when I moved to California). I scanned the pictures not certain about the details of the stories but at least learning the generalities of the stories beginnings, middles, and endings. There was one particular book; it had a whale on the front, so I knew it was Moby Dick, a rather boring story about a guy who gets on a boat to stab whales with spears. I returned to this book often mostly because I thought the funny looking Indian, Queequeg, who smoked a funny looking pipe was interesting. There was also another book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I really liked this one, and in fact I read the actual full length story not long after because I like the pictures so much. Roving in caves and digging for buried treasure sounded like a lot of fun. There were numerous other such black and white comic books, too many to count at the time. It seemed like hundreds. Now I know it was more like twenty. The Invisible Man was another one of my favorites; I’m not certain why. And then there was another
book I remember vividly, though I didn’t like it much. But it was so boring and irksome that I returned to it more than twice. It started with a guy walking and talking to himself. Then all of a sudden he pulled out an axe and killed an old lady for no apparent reason! Why would he do something like that? And then all he did was walk around and talk to people. For a six or seven year old boy, Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, even as a comic book, was rather boring, but I remember it; something about it struck me even as a young boy who thought it was boring.
In college I rediscovered Dostoevsky. I heard someone mention “The Brothers Karamazov written by Dostoevsky,” and then in an instant childhood memories of that really boring comic book, Crime and Punishment, flooded my mind. Almost simultaneously I had the insatiable desire to read the Brothers Karamazov, and I did. Much to my surprise, it was not as boring as I remembered Crime and Punishment to be. The Karamazov brothers are a lot of things, but they are certainly not boring. The oldest brother Dmitri is in love with the same woman as his father. Ivan writes theological treatises to be ironic, for he is an atheist. And poor Alyosha, the youngest brother, is a monk in training; he is a beacon of purity. In the shadowy corners and cobwebs lurks Smerdyakov, the schemer, the illegitimate son. While reflecting on the Brothers Karamazov, it is sometimes difficult to think of these brothers, their relationships with each other and with others as something fictional. It’s all so vivid and vital.Dostoevsky’s other novels, though not quite as masterful as The Brothers Karamazov, are nonetheless memorable. The twenty-six year old Prince Myshkin’s, Dostoevsky’s Christ figure (the idiot), relationship with the debauched world is startling and tragic. I am absent minded, and I forget a lot of things. But I will never forget Kirillov’s final scene with Stepanovich in Demons - I am reminded of O’Connor’s wisdom for fiction, “violence is not an end in itself but is an extreme situation that reveals what we are essentially.” There are many memorable people and events in Dostoevsky’s novels. Things happen that won’t soon be forgotten.
My junior year in college I hadn’t a clue what lay on a book shelf somewhere waiting to ambush me. Rediscovering Crime and Punishment in college was something analogous to meeting an old disliked acquaintance who turns out to be a rather formidable foe and indispensable friend. It didn’t take long for me to learn that the first page in the comic book and the first page in Volokhonsky’s translation are two different things. There is discontinuity between the pictures and the words. Perhaps, the pictures weren’t very good, but I think it’s because the world of the words can’t be copied with something other than words without adding and subtracting and thereby creating something different. Raskolnikov, Sonya, Svidrigailov, Porfiry, Razumikhin, and Marmeladov’s story can be told only, it seems, with words.
Unfortunately, I have never read any of Dostoevsky’s novels in Russian, perhaps one day. But even through translations, I think I know Dostoevsky had a way with words, introducing people, recounting tragedies as if they had happened, and drawing truth in crayon for anyone to see, even a young boy who only had the pictures.
Thus far, Dostoevsky has given me much. These are a few such reflections: a person strives to live in a coffin, in the chambers of death, in a prison, in addiction, underground, in rebellion. Trapped by self-imposed death the man underground can’t do anything; addicted to the “next time,” the gambler can’t let go and live; the rebel deceives himself into thinking death is better than life. And yet a person can truly live, only if he dies to death and rebellion. The murderer makes for himself a coffin and convinces himself that it's better to be in the coffin than outside of it. But a person must die to living in death. A person must relinquish death through confession in order to live, to resurrect into new life. The life after death to death is fraught with struggle, but it is truly life. Here is an ironic truth. We feeble humans strive to live according to our own deathly wishes, and yet life awaits to vitalize us if only we would die to death first.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Postmodernism III: an Alternative?
What have I done? By denying Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Sartre and Camus as proponents of postmodernism, have I gone off the deep end? Perhaps, though I do not think so. I mentioned before truncated explanations for this. If these folks are not genuinely postmodern but are criticizers of modernism, then who is genuinely postmodern? For modernism to be felled, someone must offer an alternative and then operate according to the assumptions within that alternative. Folks such as Kierkegaard and company have been associated with postmodernism previously, but I suggest that Kierkegaard and company did not offer an alternative to modernism, and they continued to operate according to certain modern assumptions. Furthermore, postmodernism itself had still not fully emerged and taken shape - though it continues to do so even now. If it had not yet taken shape and they never offered a genuine alternative, then how could any of them be associated with postmodernism? They were associated in generality because they critiqued and indicated the need for something other than modernism. But saying somebody is sick and writing a prescription are two different things.
I suppose we could say that postmodernism is merely a critique of modernism and therefore include the aforementioned folks. However, I think when we all use the term postmodernism we are referring to something other than modernism, thereby excluding the aforementioned folks.
Who then is postmodern? Is anyone? I think there are some folks who genuinely are.
Again, this inquiry is motivated by clarity seeking to answer the question, “what is postmodernism anyway?” It seems in fashion to refer to anything disliked or especially liked, off kilter or especially keen, hip or fancy, culturally alternative or muddled as postmodern. Just about any new shiny or unconventional thing is considered postmodern. But that seems rather silly. Thus, there’s a need to do some dusting. I shall trace briefly a few seemingly genuine postmoderns - I will be brief and be forced to use generalities, unfortunately making me a bit of a hypocrite. But, perhaps, sketching a few genuine postmoderns will distinguish postmodernism from Kierkegaard and company and common generalities.
Again, modernism is characterized by preference to reason, universality, individualism, autonomy, and foundationalism, among other things. These tenets involve all areas of thought in the optimistic modern era.
Nearly three hundred years after Descartes made his fateful declaration, there emerged a few folks who genuinely departed from the Cartesian tradition. To merely namedrop and not fall into thorough explanation ( I recently wrote a “school paper” involving some of these chaps, so I have little desire to recapitulate), Quine, Lakatos, and MacIntyre, among many others, give thorough and clear departure from the modern project - Wittgenstein may be grouped with these folks though he was nearly sixty years ahead of his time perhaps even a hundred years ahead of his time. They go beyond mere critique and reconsider previously held assumptions. Nancey Murphy indicates in several of her books the tectonic shift from modernism to postmodernism, involving changes in language and epistemology and “metaphysics.” More than critique is at play here. Epistemology (entrapment within the vague throne of "mind"), for example, is not “first philosophy” for postmoderns as it was for moderns (halleluiah!).
Postmodernism is not merely a critique but an alternative, a new canvas. Murphy regards epistemological, linguistic, and “metaphysical” holism as a postmodern alternative. For example, the epistemological holism requires not that we determine what is certain but what is “unsurpassable” so far and that we consequently appropriate whatever it is that is currently “unsurpassable” as part of our system.
To show the stark difference between modernism and postmodernism, a series of hypocritically general contrasts may give clarity. The moderns give preference to reason, and the postmoderns give credence to tradition/community. The moderns sought universality, and the postmoderns acknowledge locality. The moderns fell to individualism, and the postmoderns are communal - e.g. relationships are crucial for identity and social conventions are the determinate for language. If moderns’ theory of knowledge was something like a layer cake, postmoderns’ theory of knowledge is something like a fruitcake. I tend to like layer cakes but...
It seems that the modern foibles have lasted long enough and have been supplanted. I wonder if humans merely found themselves weary of Cartesian nonsense and decided to play a different game, one involving common sense, one in which we are able to affirm things such as interaction in the “external” world.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Postmodernism II: Another Thread, a Step Towards Something Else
Previously I mentioned Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche as three Davids who seemed to begin toppling the Goliath of modernism. However, this is only partly accurate, for they did less to topple him and more to indicate that he should be toppled, though they may have thought that they were toppling him. Sartre and Camus were similar to them in this sense. They also indicated the dilapidation of the modern project, but they did little to actually topple it. Indicating something as problematic and proffering a viable alternative to the problem are two different things. King Saul and David’s brothers knew that Goliath was a problem. In fact any ole bloke could have told you that. Sartre and Camus were in a similar situation. They expressed the results of the modern project, the dark mood pervading western culture. They were beacons that somewhere along the way something went wrong. Not to mention the severe tragedies of the World Wars were substantial evidence to indicate the guiltiness and incompleteness of the modern project. In fact Percy says that if he had to pinpoint the complete downfall of modernism, it would be the summer of 1914, “the year we began destroying ourselves.”
There grew a cloud of angst in the 20th century. This angst is in part a modern germ. Sartre’s Nausea comments on this, though his short novel is, in my opinion, only a recapitulation of “Silhouettes” and various other passages from Either/Or volume one – “…this reflective sorrow…I call silhouettes, partly to suggest at once by the name that I draw them from the dark side of life and partly because, like silhouettes, they are not immediately visible.” In a similar vein, Camus’ The Stranger involves a disillusioned fellow who gets rapped up in an absurd murder and while in prison waits night and day for execution, for death. Individuals have been separated as parts of whole, isolated parts, estranged into the recesses of bewildered and lost autonomy. Sartre and Camus indicated, in part, the problem, the germ, the angst. But they offered little, if anything, as a distinct alternative.
Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche rebuked and scoffed at the modern notion of humanity. Sartre and Camus showed what the modern project left for humanity, estrangement and emptiness. None of these folks offered a completely different way forward apart from the modern project, for they each carried with them heavy modern baggage. Kierkegaard carried Descartes in his back pocket. Dostoevsky faithfully critiqued but did not formulate an alternative to modernism – his novel Demons (also translated The Possessed and Devils) epitomizes his critique of the modern isms sweeping across Russia. Nietzsche’s morality seems to have been an extreme example of conflated modern individualism – as a side note Tolstoy said Nietzsche’s claim regarding morality was analogous to someone standing up and with a serious expression on his face declaring to the world, “water is not wet.” Sartre remained bedfellows with Kant and Hume, among others. And Camus’ reaction to modern certainty and truth was that if there is truth to be known a person can probably not know it.
Thus, these brilliant philosophers indicated a problem; they showed contempt for the modern project, but they were only indicative. However, that’s not a bad thing. As Kierkegaard said, “it is an infinite merit to be able to despair,” for being conscious of the despair is to be onto something. And that is a step.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Postmodernism I: a Thread and a Dent
If you have asked yourself once before, “what is postmodernism,” you are in the same boat as the rest of us. The term “postmodern” is thrown around a lot these days often without qualifiers. It is assumed that you know what it means or perhaps that nobody really knows what it means – in that case it’s a rather useless term. For some reason, I thought we used words to convey meaning to another person – hence intersubjectivity, but I suppose with the term “postmodern” that does not apply. I have heard postmodern used, or seemingly so, to refer to a particular worldview, a historical current or era, and even used synonymously with relativity – another term that needs certain qualifications. In short it is used to refer to something that is other than and after modernism. So it seems that for postmodernism to be understood, what ever it is that immediately preceded it must be clarified first. Modernism is more or less generally understood, though I doubt if I could summarize it here in a few words. To decipher the meaning of postmodernism, it might be easiest to examine the tapestry thread by thread. But postmodern threads were once modern in color and must be considered accordingly.
Let’s think of modernism as a philosophical project and cultural attitude involving both certain optimisms and severe criticisms of the way things were. There was an optimistic press toward universal understanding and a critical reevaluation of religion, among other things. They sang their philosophic tunes with relish. “We can know what actually is! And we shall leave the archaic superstitions by the wayside at last!” Before I digress into sounding similar to an introduction to the history of philosophy, let’s leave modernism with these thoughts: modernism made certain assumptions – as do we all no matter when we are living – that were treated as essential. Their optimism perhaps clouded their already cloudy vision, and their arbitrary scrutiny of religion regarded religion as the dusty underpinnings of the uncivilized, uneducated, superstitious person. Perhaps, modern folks supposed that by exposing religion for what it is they might proceed past the impediment that is religion. “Religion has shackled people for long enough.” Thus, the moderns recreated. A person possesses reason; a person is good, and a person is autonomous. What then is stopping us from acquisitioning truth?
Though modernism – the ism that lives in the hearts of people and most notably the ideas of people that infect other people long after the original people have died – would not loosen its clutches on western civilization without a fight. But history has a way of being rather interesting, and just when a Goliath begins to seem unstoppable a little David comes along with a few pebbles and a sling. Only this time there were multiple Davids. I shall mention three.
The Melancholy Dane, Kierkegaard, wrote many things most of which I do not understand. He ridiculed cultural Christianity and nominalism. But what I find myself most interesting is his seemingly undying desire to sort out what it is “to be a person in the nineteenth century.” He indicated three spheres of existence and the pandemic of despair. A person is sick, and a person cannot be rid of it; this sickness only intensifies when a person tries to play doctor on himself and eradicate it.
Across the globe in the long winters of Russia, another David emerged, Dostoevsky. His writing career was marked and inspired by his cruel and cold exile in Siberia. Something happened there, and he was never the same. Resurrecting from the depths of exile, he showed a person to be a ghastly creature capable of the worst if given the opportunity; these images of sick humanity are in all of his novels. But in contrast, humanity is somehow also capable of some good – Raskolnikov is somehow a murderer and a charitable giver; Dmitri is a sensualist but he can see his own depravity. Oh but a person not only has the capacity for good and evil, but a person is more than a rational animal. “2+2 may equal 4” but “reason only satisfies the rational side of man’s nature.” A person is not a mechanism that needs only the proper modern oil; he is something else, something more, with the capacity for utmost corruption and good.
A fermenting devil who felt victory over the modern remnants was just a few pen scratches away, Nietzsche, steamed and scoffed at the world for its moral tomfoolery. I can imagine him saying, though more eloquently, “Those peons who speak of moral this and moral that are but picking their noses and winking at each other. That morality is the fabricated way of the weak. I shall rise above their inverted morality that was esteemed by their dead god. I am destiny...I am superman.”
I would not attribute the fall of modernism and the rise of postmodernism to any one of these fellows, though they each played their own part in their own way. These formidable revolutionaries, though revolutionaries they were, remained within certain modern assumptions. But they did dent or bruise certain modern anthropological assumptions. Humanity is more than rational; humanity is not ultimately good, and what is good anyway? What then is stopping humanity from acquisitioning truth?
So what is man? The paragon of animals? A freak? Something else?
This is a feeble description of an anthropological thread that ran through modernism and was countered by three Davids of the nineteenth century. But this is merely one thread. There are many others in the tapestry, but those are for another time.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
A Tentative Top 11 Novels
The Sound and the Fury comes in at #11, though it is more reasonably to be considered as tied for tenth. I am not a literary critic, but when I began reading this I knew I had stumbled onto greatness. It is one of the most difficult novels I have ever read, but it is also one of the most intriguing. 
Nausea comes in at #10. This is THE existentialist novel of the 20th century. That’s not merely my opinion but the opinion of many others. Sartre evidently said that he "poured" himself into the writing of it. Reading it was an analogous experience.
The Stranger ranks at #9. I appreciate this as much as the Plague (strange phrase; I never thought I would say I appreciate a plague), but it is simpler though with many subtleties.
The Plague comes in at #8. I must say, in my quite humble opinion, this is Camus’ masterpiece, a gem. It’s worth reading and rereading and rereading. I am certain that I will return to this novel again and again. 
A Tale of Two Cities comes in at #7. I would be hard pressed not to put this in my top eleven. I grew up with this story, and few years ago I reread it. Dickens has a way with plots and interweaving people’s paths. This is an iconic novel and with good reason. 
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn comes in #6. Do not be fooled into thinking this is merely a child’s story, though it is about children. I read this when I was I child, and I read it again last year. It is an American classic not merely because of its unforgettable characters but because of its deeply significant currents of irony and truth, doubt and belief, estrangement and relationship, among other things. This one would rank higher on the list but for the other high quality of the others. I often refer to it as my favorite American novel, but then I remember Moby Dick.
War and Peace is #5. This is one of the slowest novels I’ve read, but by the end of it I, for some seemingly ironic reason, wasn’t ready to part ways with the people who I had met along the way. The chapters are rather short, so that assuages its overall length. I wager a guess that the stories in this novel are some of the most memorable in literature.
Moby Dick is #4. I think this is THE American novel. Sure, the themes are striking. But it’s rather surprising that the beautiful rhetoric was some how American and not British. I read this while road tripping across the United States, and on multiple occasions I found that I had to read it aloud to Esther. It’s an absolutely magnificent piece. 
Crime and Punishment comes in #3. Yes, I am an unashamed Dostoevsky fan. Having read it several times, I could sit down even right now and begin reading and be as fascinated as if I were reading it for the first time. Few novels are as layered and intense as this one.Raskolnikov is one of my favorite characters in literature. He is a modern Hamlet.
Anna Karenina comes in #2. Dostoevsky said that this was a flawless masterpiece. How can I disagree? Esther began reading it and could not put it down. I had a similar experience. From the first to the last page, this story is weighted with value.
The Brothers Karamazov comes in #1. After reading it for a second time last summer, I confirmed that yes it is my favorite novel. The lives of the Karamazovs are tumultuous at best. I recommend this novel above any other. Once journeyed, you will never be the same.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
An Experiment in Untamed Communication
You may be asking yourself, “What’s this, another blog to add to the innumerable others?” Why yes in fact it is, nothing more and nothing less. I apologize in advance.
I intend to give my digestive grumblings a microphone, perhaps a mistake. Thus, I shall ramble about a book or two perhaps a movie for “kicks and giggles,” though I rather doubt it. I have fallen victim to blogging by this thought: it is of little likelihood that I will ever write extensive essays on The Brothers Karamazov or Surprised by Joy or Either/Or so why not jot a few impressions in a blog. I do not intend to give a synopsis of this and that, for I am certain that you can find something of the sort on Wikipedia or Google. Dear me, I cannot imagine being responsible for such a formidable task as writing a synopsis of Either/Or. If I were to attempt such a thing, I am certain that it would be longer than Either/Or itself and Kierkegaard would resurrect himself with the sole intention of destroying it for me! Rest in peace Soren, for I shall do no such thing. I shall merely give what I can, a few feeble impressions of mine, perhaps barely more than a word or two.
This seems to be an excellent time for me to ramble about books, for I am currently a full time student with the majority of my time committed to reading and maundering about it, though formal school papers allow no such thing. Professors require of their students the utmost in formula and method, for what would professors do if they had to read boring papers that in addition to being boring were jumbled in thought and structure? Thus, professors require that their students give a thesis statement and follow the strictest formula. The professors can’t be blamed – one such professor described his predicament as having to read a War and Peace written by nineteen year olds. Poor chap! I can’t imagine. So in reverence to my esteemed professors, I write a thesis statement followed by an explanation that tells precisely what I am presenting in my shabbily put together argument. But in contrast to those school essays about books, blogs are much different beasts, untamed ones.
The writing process has always interested me, though for much of the time I did not realize it. I am struck by the question, “how does a person go about expressing what it is that he or she thinks he is thinking or feeling?” Naturally much thought is filtered and poorly communicated when expressed; probably the expression of thought and feeling is a rather different beast than the one that was thought or felt in the first place. But we do try at least.
Thus, these written impressions of books shall be untamed and probably not correspond all too well with my original impression that led to my writing an entry. Nonetheless, I shall attempt, if for nothing else than the sheer enjoyment of the process of thinking and expressing.
And so it begins.
I intend to give my digestive grumblings a microphone, perhaps a mistake. Thus, I shall ramble about a book or two perhaps a movie for “kicks and giggles,” though I rather doubt it. I have fallen victim to blogging by this thought: it is of little likelihood that I will ever write extensive essays on The Brothers Karamazov or Surprised by Joy or Either/Or so why not jot a few impressions in a blog. I do not intend to give a synopsis of this and that, for I am certain that you can find something of the sort on Wikipedia or Google. Dear me, I cannot imagine being responsible for such a formidable task as writing a synopsis of Either/Or. If I were to attempt such a thing, I am certain that it would be longer than Either/Or itself and Kierkegaard would resurrect himself with the sole intention of destroying it for me! Rest in peace Soren, for I shall do no such thing. I shall merely give what I can, a few feeble impressions of mine, perhaps barely more than a word or two.
This seems to be an excellent time for me to ramble about books, for I am currently a full time student with the majority of my time committed to reading and maundering about it, though formal school papers allow no such thing. Professors require of their students the utmost in formula and method, for what would professors do if they had to read boring papers that in addition to being boring were jumbled in thought and structure? Thus, professors require that their students give a thesis statement and follow the strictest formula. The professors can’t be blamed – one such professor described his predicament as having to read a War and Peace written by nineteen year olds. Poor chap! I can’t imagine. So in reverence to my esteemed professors, I write a thesis statement followed by an explanation that tells precisely what I am presenting in my shabbily put together argument. But in contrast to those school essays about books, blogs are much different beasts, untamed ones.
The writing process has always interested me, though for much of the time I did not realize it. I am struck by the question, “how does a person go about expressing what it is that he or she thinks he is thinking or feeling?” Naturally much thought is filtered and poorly communicated when expressed; probably the expression of thought and feeling is a rather different beast than the one that was thought or felt in the first place. But we do try at least.
Thus, these written impressions of books shall be untamed and probably not correspond all too well with my original impression that led to my writing an entry. Nonetheless, I shall attempt, if for nothing else than the sheer enjoyment of the process of thinking and expressing.
And so it begins.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)